5 numbers that mattered this week

With the start of the Trump administration, we’re resuming this POLITICO feature, where we dig into the latest polls and loop in other data streams to tell the story of how Americans are reacting to the political upheaval in Washington. Here are five numbers that mattered this week:

It’s only one week into President Donald Trump’s term, but Americans are registering greater disapproval of his administration than any of his predecessors in the modern era of polling at the outset of their presidencies.

According to the latest RealClearPolitics average as of Sunday, Trump’s approval and disapproval ratings are nearly identical: 44 percent approve, and 45 percent disapprove.

Trump’s initial approval rating in the Gallup tracking poll — 45 percent after the first three nights of his presidency — was lower than that of each previous president reaching back to Dwight Eisenhower. Two former presidents, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, each had a 51 percent approval rating in Gallup’s first measurements, 6 points higher than Trump’s.

The percentage who disapprove of Trump is more instructive than his approval rating. In the initial Gallup poll, Trump had a 45 percent disapproval rating. Some of that can be explained by polarization: 81 percent of Democrats disapproved of Trump, but only 6 percent of Republicans disapproved.

But public opinion of Trump's nascent presidency is still far worse than that of the early days of previous presidents, including his most recent predecessors. Barack Obama’s first disapproval rating was only 12 percent. Even George W. Bush, who was elected after a protracted and controversial recount, opened with only 25 percent disapproval. Bill Clinton won just 43 percent of the vote in 1992, but only 20 percent disapproved of his job performance at the outset of his presidency in 1993.

There is a fairly wide spread in Trump’s approval rating, ranging from 55 percent in the latest Rasmussen Reports automated survey, to 36 percent in a Quinnipiac University poll.

One possible cause may be question wording — some analysts have suggested that asking respondents whether they approve of “the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president,” as Quinnipiac does, may yield lower approval ratings than asking about “the job Donald Trump is doing as president,” as other polls ask.

The Republican-leaning Rasmussen poll — 55 percent approval versus 45 percent disapproval, as of Friday — excludes respondents who express no opinion of the president’s job performance, and therefore leads to inflated numbers for both measures.

Meanwhile, there are signs Americans' perceptions of Trump worsened over the past week. Trump's approval rating in the latest Gallup daily tracking poll, conducted last Thursday through Saturday, has slipped to 42 percent. More than half, 51 percent, disapprove of Trump's job performance.

Republicans maintained control of both houses of Congress in last year’s elections, but GOP voters are still distrustful of the legislative branch.

Only 35 percent of Republican voters approve of the way Congress is handling its job, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released last week. Nearly half of Republicans, 49 percent, disapprove. (Overall, 19 percent of voters approve of Congress’ job performance, and 67 percent disapprove.)

That’s part of a longer-term trend: Even as Republicans won control of the House in the 2010 elections and captured the Senate in 2014, their voters were slow to warm to those chambers after building up opposition to Democratic control.

Contrast approval with the new Congress to early 2007, just after Democrats took over both chambers. In the spring of 2007, congressional approval stood at 39 percent in a Quinnipiac poll, while 52 percent disapproved. Democrats tilted modestly in favor of Congress: 51 percent approval to 41 percent disapproval.

Back then, Republican approval of Congress was only 5 percentage points lower than it is today: 30 percent, compared to 64 percent who disapproved.

Continued voter disdain for Congress could give Trump — who had an 81 percent approval rating among GOP voters in the Quinnipiac poll — the upper hand in a possible clash with Hill Republicans.

Trump’s initial approval rating in the Quinnipiac poll is upside-down. Roughly two-thirds of voters, 66 percent, describe themselves as dissatisfied with the way things are going in the nation today.

But while Trump is on a short leash, a majority of voters are still giving him a chance.

According to the Quinnipiac poll, 53 percent of voters say they are generally optimistic about the next four years with Trump as president, compared with 43 percent who are pessimistic. The optimists include the vast majority of Republicans, 96 percent — but also 20 percent of Democrats and 51 percent of independents.

Perhaps more interesting than the partisan splits is the gender gap regarding the next four years: 60 percent of male voters say they are optimistic, but only 46 percent of female voters agree. That’s wider than the 8-point gender gap in Trump’s approval rating: 41 percent among men, 33 percent among women, according to Quinnipiac.

With the 2010 health care law on the brink of repeal, more than 4 in 10 voters say they would punish lawmakers who scrap the law.

According to the Quinnipiac University poll, 43 percent of voters say it would make them less likely to reelect their congressperson or senator if they vote to repeal Obamacare — a greater share than the 24 percent who said it would make them more likely to reelect their member. Another 29 percent said repealing Obamacare wouldn’t matter much either way when it comes to reelecting their member of Congress.

Among Democrats, 74 percent said repealing the law would make them less likely to vote to reelect their member. But just 5 percent of GOP voters say it would make them less likely to reelect their members, while half said repeal would make them more likely to support the incumbent.

Among self-identified independents, only 21 percent say repealing Obamacare would make them more likely to reelect their congressperson or senator, but 44 percent say it would make them less likely. Twenty-eight percent of independents say it wouldn’t matter.

From replacing Obamacare to building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, the ambitious agenda Trump and congressional Republicans are pursuing could come at a budget-busting price tag.

But new polling last week from the Pew Research Center suggests the federal deficit is no longer the priority for Americans that it was years ago.

A 52 percent majority says the budget deficit should be a “top priority” for Trump and Congress, the Pew survey shows. That’s roughly equal to the 53 percent who rated it a top priority eight years ago, when Obama became president.

But Republicans successfully criticized the expansion of deficits under Obama and congressional Democrats, who said greater spending was necessary to overcome a deep recession precipitated by the financial crisis of 2008. By early 2013, at the start of Obama’s second term, 72 percent of Americans said cutting the deficit should be a top priority.

More Republicans (63 percent) today call the deficit a top priority than Democrats (46 percent), suggesting the GOP will still have to walk a fine line when it comes to implementing costlier parts of Trump’s agenda.